Green Lantern was one of the biggest disasters for both Ryan Reynolds and DC movies, and that view hasn’t changed over time.
Some movies don’t shine as brightly as they could in their debut, but become cult classics or find success years after their initial release. Unfortunately, Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern was neither and is still seen as a movie that should never have happened. Unfortunately, that view is largely shared by Reynolds, who even made fun of the film’s reputation dead pool 2‘s post-credits scene.
While performing at a comedy festival in the UK, Variety reported that Reynolds was asked about his infamous superhero film and had no problem explaining what he thought went wrong with the film. He said:
“There were just too many people overspending and if there was a problem, rather say, ‘Okay, let’s stop spending on special effects and let’s think about character. How do we replace that big spectacle – that doesn’t work at all – with something based on character?’ and that just never — the thinking was never there to do that,” he explained. “And to their credit, it’s a very old-fashioned way of looking at things. It’s just ‘Let’s keep working through this’. And that was – it didn’t work. At the same time there were 185 people working on that movie, they were all having a great time, we loved making it. Really, shooting the movie was a lot of fun. But, you know, sitting in that premiere, watching that, oh my God. It is heavy.”
Ryan Reynolds recalled his reaction to the Green Lantern premiere
If Ryan Reynolds made clear, attending the premiere of Green Lantern wasn’t the best moment of his career, and when asked what was going through his mind at the time, he continued:
“The words were ‘Holy Sh*t’ and ‘No. NO!’ Oh my God [my butt] was like a ukulele down there. It was crazy. It was a weird feeling. It was not a feeling I wanted to repeat. So I really spent the next few years owning as much as I could, it was the only way I could handle it.
Of course, despite that experience with the superhero genre and his less than spectacular first appearance as Wade Wilson in X-Men origin: WolverineReynolds managed to fall to his feet when he returned to play Wade Wilson again Deadpool. After wiping the slate clean with the character, Deadpool And dead pool 2 played to Reynolds’ strengths, and now he’s about to join the MCU, alongside his buddy Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, in Deadpool3.
Exactly where his Deadpool long-term future lies is still unclear. But with production on the new film set to begin in the coming months, there’s no doubt this threequel is anything but a huge hit for Marvel Studios when it releases in November 2024. With both Reynolds and Jackman already on the promotion track through their dueling social media accounts, the road to the MCU’s first R-rated movie is well underway.